Becoming Visible. a Camera to Fight Erasure.

My first meeting with the Douar Ouled Dlim inhabitants occurred on 26 March 2014. They were gathered on the highway linking Casablanca to Rabat. While holding a banner, the women at the front of the stage chanted various slogans related to their revendication for rehousing. Suddenly, one of the women noticed my camera. She said: "Can you film us?" - Yes, of course".

This is how my investigation began. The camera accompanied my meetings with the inhabitants of the Douar Ouled Dlim, who were fighting for their right to re-housing. This new ethnographic tool, implemented at the population's request, shapes a new approach. It opened up various research perspectives on how inhabitants are staged. It also analysed the role of the researcher, who becomes a producer of images and, simultaneously, a key player in strategies for publicising social struggle.

This article investigates the boundaries between a researcher who is also a participant of a struggle. This position, if it is specific in that it raises numerous questions at the methodological level, simultaneously opens up novel perspectives on conducting an ethnography. It also opens up new perspectives on how a researcher can reflexively analyse how his or her methodology conditions data collection. Thus, the status of the researcher who becomes an actor in the investigation must be considered as a stakeholder in the analysis of the social situation in progress.